36

MINUTES  OF  EVIDENCE  TAKEN  BEFORE  SELECT  COMMITTEE

G.C.S.I,
K.C.B.
17  Juljr
t-Byi.

Sir  B.  Frere,  might  go  to  in  dealing  with  those  Governments,
and  prepared  with  some  authority,  and  with  the
dignity  of  a  special  envoy  to  press  these  points
on  those  governments.
453.  What  is  the  nature  and  extent  of  the
Indo-African  trade,  exclusive  of  slaves?—It  is
very  considerable.  Some  of  the  reports  before
the  Committee  give  the  figures.  But  the  point
that  should  be  noted  especially  is,  that  it  is  a
very  old  and  reviving  trade.  Before  any  authentic ­
  Greek  history,  it  is  quite  clear  that  there
was  a  very  considerable  trade  on  this  coast,  and
India  had  a  very  considerable  share  in  it.  It  is
more  than  probable  that  a  good  deal  of  the
African  trade,  such  as  it  was,  which  found  its
way  to  l  yre  and  Syria,  was  carried  on  then,  as
now,  by  Indian  merchants,  who  had  their  houses
of  agency  at  African  ports.  The  earliest  travellers,
both  those  who  came  from  the  north  and  those
who  came  with  the  Portuguese  round  the  Cape,
found  Indian  traders  at  every  port  along  the
coast,  and  a  very  considerable  Indian  trade  carried ­
  on  between  Africa  and  India.  And  that
trade  was  only  crushed  for  a  time,  or  very  much
lessened,  at  all  events,  by  the  action  of  European
and  Arab  piracy.  All  the  novels  of  Defoe’s  time
speak  of  piracy  in  those  seas  very  much  as  we  refer
to  expeditions  into  the  far  west  of  America;  and
it  is  quite  clear,  if  you  read  the  memoirs  of  Captain
Singleton,  or  any  books  of  that  kind,  that  active
young  men  went  into  those  seas  and  plundered
everybody,  but  especially  the  Indian  merchants,
almost  without  any  sense  that  they  were  doing
wrong.  It  was  only  when  the  trade  had  got  to  be
almost  entirely  confined  to  large  ships  that  piracy
came  to  be  less  profitable.  Of  late  years  this
trade  has  revived,  and  judging  from  all  analogy,
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  it  were  properly
dealt  with,  and  not  impeded,  as  it  is  impeded,  by
the  slave  trade,  it  would  increase  very  rapidly.
I  may  mention  that  almost  all  of  what  we  may
call  the  banking  business  at  those  ports  is  done
by  natives  of  India,  who  have  their  homes  in
Scinde,  Kurrachee,  Kutch,  Kattewar,  and  Bombay, ­
  and  some  as  far  south  as  Cananore  and
Cochin.  They  never  take  their  families  to
Africa  ;  the  head  of  the  house  of  business  always
remains  in  India,  and  their  books  are  balanced
periodically  in  India.  The  house  in  Africa  is
merely  a  branch  house,  though  many  of  those
people  will  assure  you,  and  they  give  very  good
evidence  of  the  fact,  that  they  have  had  branches
in  Africa  for  300  years,  and  possibly  for  much
more.  When  you  have  that  kind  of  network  of  indigenous ­
  activity  existing  as  a  mercantile  agency,
it  "is  impossible  to  believe  but  that  the  traders
will  be  as  ready  to  push  legitimate  trade  as  they
have  proved  themselves  to  be  in  India.
454.  What  is  your  view  of  the  comparative
importance  of  those  African  traders  to  England
and  India?—I  should  say  the  trade  is  equally
important  to  both.
455.  But  I  mean  with  regard  to  the  amount  ?
—With  regard  to  the  amount  of  it,  the  trade
used  to  be  almost  all  carried  on  through  Bombay.
The  first  change  was  that  a  portion  of  it  was
taken  to  the  entrepôt  at  Aden  ;  but  latterly  a
great  deal  of  it  has  come  direct  from  Europe
to  Africa.  There  is  a  considerable  and  increasing
American  trade,  or  rather  there  was  before  the
American  war,  and  the  German  and  French  trade
is  very  rapidly  increasing.  The  German  trade
has  become  a  matter  of  very  great  interest  to  all
German  mercantile  men  and  political  economists.

and  German  attention  has  been  very  much  directed ­
  to  that  coast.  But  notwithstanding  the
large  direct  trade  that  has  grown  up,  the  Indian
trade  continues  to  increase  almost  as  much  as  the
English  trade,  and  there  seems  to  be  an  almost
inexhaustible  field  for  trade  on  that  coast.  I
had  the  advantage  of  having  Dr.  Livingstone
living  with  me  for  some  time,  between  two  of  his
expeditions  to  Africa,  and  he  is,  as  the  Coininittee
  are  aware,  one  of  the  most  keen  and  careful ­
  observers  that  one  could  possibly  meet  with,
lie  was  extremely  struck  when  he  had  travelled
a  little  in  Western  India;  he  made  two  or
three  journies  to  a  short  distance  from  Bombay,
and  he  was  extremely  struck  with  the  immense
apparent  facility  for  a  very  large  mutual  trade
being  carried  on  between  the  two  continents.
Dr.  Livingstone  pointed  out  that  there  was  an
almost  unlimited  power  of  producing  food  in
Africa.  We  had  been  in  the  habit  of  supposing
that  in  India  we  should  never  have  to  im])ort  food
from  anywhere  else  ;  but  it  so  happened,  during
the  time  he  was  with  me,  that  in  one  province  oí
India  famine  was  threatened,  and  the  prices  were
at  once  lowered  by  importation  from  the  Persian
Gulf.  He  remarked  the  fact  immediately,  and
pointed  out  that  the  grain  that  was  imported,
was  grain  that  could  be  produced  to  any  extent
in  some  of  the  high  lands  at  a  little  distance
from  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  that  grain  of  different ­
  kinds,  suited  to  the  Indian  taste,  could  be
laid  down  on  the  coast  at  a  rate  which  would
render  its  transit  to  India  a  matter  of  commercial
certainty.
456.  Sir  Jotm  Huy.^  The  grain  being  cultivated ­
  by  free  labour,  I  suppose  ?  —  There  was
very  little  free  labour  known  then,  but  he  spoke
rather  of  the  capabilities  of  the  coast  ;  he  spoke
particularly  of  the  coast  round  Mombaza,  where
there  are  a  few  Englishmen  settled,  I  think,  who
belong  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society.
457.  Chairman.']  How  are  the  liberated  slave?
disposed  of  at  Bombay  and  Aden?—When  there
were  very  few  of  them,  I  think  it  must  be  about
20  years  ago,  they  were  made  over  to  the  police
in  Bombay,  and  the  chief  magistrate  of  police
was  charged  with  the  duty  of  finding  employment ­
  for  them.  It  was  not  difficult  to  do  so  a?
long  as  they  were  very  few,  and  as  long  as  they
were  chiefly  adults,  but  after  a  while  a  very
large  number  of  children  were  brought  ;  they
quite  exceeded  the  power  of  natural  absorption
by  any  means  at  the  command  of  the  police,  and
there  were  some  very  painful  cases,  some  of  the
men  being  kidnapped,  and  others,  women,  being
found  in  a  state  of  prostitution  in  the  bazaar?*.
The  Government  of  the  time  took  the  advice  of
some  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  and  the  Missionaries, ­
  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Government,
took  some  of  the  children,  who  were  made  over’
to  them,  and  gradually  there  grew  up  at  Nassick,
not  far  from  Bombay,  about  70  or  80  miles  front
Bombay,  where  there  is  a  station  of  the  Church
Missionary  Society,  an  African  colony,  and  th6
children  were  all  taught  industrial  occupations  oí
different  kinds.  They  trained  the  boys  as  bricklayers, ­
  carpenters,  and  smiths,  and  so  on,  and  a?
servants  fitted  to  earn  their  own  livelihood  in
India.  Dr.  Livingstone  took  from  that  institution ­
  nine  boys,  I  think,  who  went  with  him  to
Africa,  and  I  believe  they  are  the  African  boy?
who  are  supposed  to  be  with  him  still.  In  the
last  letter  I  got  from  Dr.  Livingstone,  about  twu
years  ago,  there  was  an  allusion  to  those  boys,